PHOTOSHOP FOR STOCK PHOTOGRAPHERS - PART 2
by David Arnold
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Advance Notes: Last month I discussed the importance of using image editing software on your digital images, whether generated by a digital camera or a scanner. After a brief overview of seven imaging editing programs, I concluded that while all are quite good, Photoshop--though the most expensive and time-consuming to learn--offers the greatest power and flexibility. This month we'll look at the Photoshop features of greatest use to stock photographers. Next month I'll give you some tips for developing Photoshop proficiency, and review some books, workshops, and training CDs that can lower the learning curve. Then, in the last installment, I'll review some add-on software that can supercharge Photoshop and help you produce more saleable images. -DA
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According to the October issue of Photographic magazine, "more than 70 percent of all imaging is handled in Photoshop." Photoshop can do more than competing programs, and once you've become proficient, do it faster. There's also more help available: 70 to 90 percent of image editing books, articles, workshops, etc., focus on Photoshop. Another Photoshop plus is its open architecture, which accepts third-party plug-ins that add additional features. While most (but not all) other imaging programs accept some Photoshop-compatible plug-ins, none accepts all of them.
What are the downsides of Photoshop? First, cost: $609 vs. $100 or less for most of the competition. Second, complexity and accompanying difficulty of use. Photoshop's plethora of features, and the depth of these features, means you can't just boot it up, mouse through the menus, and consider yourself proficient. And third, Photoshop is hardware hungry. Unless you already have a pretty powerful machine, you'll probably want more RAM, and may want to replace your whole system.
What does Photoshop give you in exchange for your time and money? It can make marginal images acceptable, and good images better. Put another way, it can make you more money. Let's look at a few of the things Photoshop can do for your images. It can rotate and crop them to straighten a slanted horizon or eliminate excess sky or pavement. Click on the crop tool's perspective box and you can correct the keystoning in a building that looks like it's falling over backwards.
Photoshop's clone stamp, along with its healing brush and patch tool (new in version 7) make dust, scratch, and blemish correction a snap. Color correction can be more complex, though the new auto color command can eliminate some color casts with a single click. But if this doesn't do the trick you'll need to work with some combination of the brightness/contrast, hue and saturation, color balance, levels, and curves controls. These tools can work miracles, but you have to be the miracle worker: these aren't one-click corrections. Other tools can adjust exposure, lighten shadows, enhance a weak sky, or replace a dull sky with a dramatic one. Photoshop can even increase apparent sharpness by boosting the contrast along the edges of objects.
This is a critical capability because the very act of modifying an image digitally--editing, scanning, saving in jpeg format, etc.--reduces its sharpness. But the contradictorily named "unsharp mask" filter, can bring back the original sharpness or even improve upon it.
Once you've got your images looking the way you want, Photoshop has more tricks up its sleeve. When you want to show a photobuyer some images, just put them all in one folder, click on File>Automate>Web Picture Gallery, enter a title and your name and contact information, select sizes and jpg quality, click Go, and in seconds the web page is ready to upload to the Internet. If you'd rather send a printed contact sheet, click on File>Automate>Contact Sheet II, select your preferred page layout, and click OK.
With its click and correct capabilities, Photoshop is a digital darkroom that far surpasses the physical darkrooms of the past.
David Arnold is a travel photographer who has been writing about travel, photography, and computers since 1980. His photos have appeared in Popular Photography, Petersen's Photographic, US Air Magazine, The Rotarian, the TWA Calendar, and elsewhere. He can be reached at david@arnoldrutman.com.
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Working with Photoshop will actually make you a better photographer, since by separating out and manipulating brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, levels, et al, you'll become more aware of all the components of a scene and how to capture the best possible image in your camera. And while Photoshop can do a lot to rescue a sub-optimal image, the better the image you put into your computer, the better the image you'll be able to provide your clients. -DA
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